WINDHAM WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL

P.O. Box 1105, Brattleboro, VT  05032

WWW.WINDHAMWORLDAFFAIRS.ORG

info@windhamworldaffairs.org

MARCH 2008

     FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FALK LECTURE SERIES CONTINUES WITH TALKS

ON TURKEY AND ASIA

The Windham World Affairs Council of Vermont continues its Spring 2008 lecture series on Friday, April 11, at 7:30 PM,  with Dr. Gerald Robbins, Associate Scholar, Foreign Policy Research Institute who  will speak on Turkish Society and Politics at the Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St. Brattleboro Vermont.

Dr. Robbins is a FPRI (Foreign Policy Research Institute) Associate Scholar based in Philadelphia. He  has more than 25 years’ experience relating to Turkey, the Caucasus region, and Central Asia. A graduate in Near Eastern Studies from New York university, he was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to study labor migration issues at Bosphorus University, Istanbul. Mr. Robbins has used his Turkish language skills to report from Ankara and Istanbul for the Weekly Standard, the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times.

He has also served as Program Director for Freedom House in Baku, Azerbaijan, managing programs that promoted post-Soviet political and economic development. Mr. Robbins is a frequent lecturer at universities and foreign policy institutes. He authored Azerbaijan (Mason Crest, 2005) as part of FPRI’s “The Growth and Influence of Islam” series. He is currently focusing upon Turkey-EU integration issues, and the related topic of Muslim migration to Europe. ’06.

On Friday, May 9, at 7:30 PM at Brooks Memorial Library, Ellen L. Frost, author and former US Trade Representative (USTR), will speak on her new book Asia's New Regionalism.

Frost states that  the political drive to establish closer economic and security ties among Asian governments continues to gain momentum. One motivation is the need to engage a rising power -- China. The United States, preoccupied with the Middle East, has largely ignored the new trend, but China has become a skilled practitioner of regional diplomacy.

Does this community-building activity signal the birth of an outward-looking "Asia Major" or a China-dominated "Fortress Asia?" Is closer integration a positive trend for the region and for the United States? Sifting rhetoric from fact, Dr. Ellen Frost, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Counselor to the U.S. Trade Representative, offers a nuanced analysis of the political, economic, and strategic issues at stake.

The Windham World Affairs Council of Vermont  is part of the “World Affairs Councils of America” (WACA), the largest international affairs non-profit organization with 484,000 members and participants. WWAC is an all-volunteer council and proudly maintain all events free of charge to the public. To join the Windham World Affairs Council of Vermont and receive regular mailings of events, please send an email to info@windhamworldaffairs.org.